


most sane and sunly

by besidemethewholedamntime



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, FitzSimmons Secret Santa 2018, Fluff, Historical AU, minor hurt/comfort, minor mention of war injury but definitely nothing graphic, set end of ww2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 04:17:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17276921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: '“Fitz?” She calls, heart in her throat. Disappointment at this stage would kill her, surely. “Is that you?”“Who else would it bloody be?” He shouts, but then grins and it’s like the sunshine has come early but of course it hasn’t, for when she runs out to meet him she can still feel the raindrops on her face, only she doesn’t care.'Sometimes it takes a little while for the things we love to come home, but eventually they always do. A historical au for the lovely bean that is @recoveringrabbit for the secret santa gift exchange!





	most sane and sunly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [recoveringrabbit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/recoveringrabbit/gifts).



> Hello! It's me, your secret santa! It's been so fun all this time and while it took me a little longer than I expected to get on track, I got there in the end! I actually enjoyed writing this ever so much and I hope you like it - thank you for being you!
> 
> It's a historical AU and it's fluffy and romantic with no real bad things at all. Happy endings everywhere!
> 
> The title is from E.E. Cummings' 'love is more thicker than forget'.
> 
> Happy New Year and I hope you like it <3

 

It’s raining.

Jemma’s noticed that, lately, it always seems to be raining on a Tuesday. It starts around nine in the morning with a  light drizzle, progressing to full on torrential downpour by lunch. After that it’s a steady downpour until around three, where, quite suddenly, the water seems to stop, like somebody has turned off a tap, and the most brilliant sunshine fills the sky. Of course, by then, everything is wet and nobody wants to go outside and it’s far too late in the day to accomplish anything meaningful but all the same Jemma finds it quite beautiful.

She is waiting for the sunshine when he comes back. An empty bandstand stands in the centre of the park, and provides adequate shelter even during the worst of downpours. It’s peaceful here, nobody wanting to be outside during the horrendous weather, and so during the drizzle she makes her way out here with her book and notebooks and textbooks and stays until the late afternoon sunshine makes it so she can go home. The war has left her without a job and eager to return to her studies, though many disapproving of that choice. The peace afforded to her on these wonderfully rainy Tuesdays are something she does not take for granted.

At first she doesn’t see it’s him. It’s September, for a start. Many who are going to return have already done so, and those too wounded have not been prophesied to return for a good while yet. She hasn’t heard from him, is another thing. The last letter was almost six months ago, the last time she laid eyes on her best friend was over a year ago. Every day since victory was announced she has held onto hope that he will contact her in s _ome_ way or another but months have passed and every day, quite without meaning to, she feels the hope grow looser on her fingers and she is so desperately afraid that one day it’ll slip away forever.

“Jemma?”

The voice seems to be her imagination at first, the result of many lonely hours sitting on this uncomfortably hard seat. There can’t be anybody out here in this rain. Only a fool like her would venture out into it. Sighing, Jemma moves her neck from side to side without looking up and goes back to reading.

“Jemma? Is that you?”

Surely she can’t be this tired. True, she didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, but not so little that it would warrant imagining this much. She shakes her head and picks up something new from her pile. Perhaps a different sort of stimulation is the answer.

“Bloody hell, it’s tipping it down. Jemma Anne Simmons!”

Now that voice and that special kind of grumpiness she would know anywhere and her head snaps up at the familiar sound she hasn’t heard in so long. It can’t be… but it is. A lone figure in Army greens, walking with a slight limp, with longer hair and a beard she doesn’t remember is coming towards her and she squints to make doubly sure through the rain.

“Fitz?” She calls, heart in her throat. Disappointment at this stage would kill her, surely. “Is that you?”

“Who else would it bloody be?” He shouts, but then grins and it’s like the sunshine has come early but of course it hasn’t, for when she runs out to meet him she can still feel the raindrops on her face, only she doesn’t care. How could she, when her best-friend is back from what she was almost sure was the dead?

“Fitz!” She exclaims, throwing her arms around him, mindful of the force she exerts on his body. “You’re back. You’re properly back.”

“’Course I am.” Except his voice wavers a little bit and it sounds like there was a time when he wasn’t quite sure he would be. His arms come around her, so sure and strong, and he presses a kiss on the top of her hair. “I’ve missed you, Jemma.”

“Not as much as I’ve missed you,” she mumbles into his shoulder, not caring that there are tears in her eyes and most likely snot on his uniform. It’s not like he’ll need it anymore. She pulls back, shakily wiping her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re home. Just out of the blue like this!”

He smiles nervously, letting go of her to rub at the back of his neck. “Yeah, me neither, if I’m honest. Wasn’t expecting to get away this quick.”

A downward glance at his leg and she remembers suddenly what she noticed moments ago. “Oh, Fitz, your leg! What happened?”

A laugh that’s not quite a laugh at all. “A bit of a long story, that one.” He looks past her to the bandstand. “Do you mind if we sit down? It gets a bit sore if I stand for too long.”

Jemma suddenly realises that it’s still raining torrentially and she is only in her lightest of jackets and, by now, is soaked something terribly. Her hair is plastered to her face and she has to swipe it away in order to continue to marvel at Fitz. “Of course. Here, I’ll help you.” And offers her arm, which he accepts with a grateful smile. The weight he exerts, she notices, is considerably lighter than what it would have been the last time she saw him. Casting a critical eye, Jemma takes in his hollow cheeks and papery eyelids, but says nothing.

Once under shelter she shrugs off her jacket and gives it to Fitz to sit on. At his doubtful look she points to the cushion that she brought for herself. Fitz only laughs and shakes his head, before shuffling onto it. Jemma recognises the look of relief on his face; the benches do not provide the most comfortable place to sit.

“Thought of everything, I see,” Fitz comments, stretching out his bad leg.

“I’m studying. My grandmother doesn’t approve and neither do many of her friends that always seem to be visiting so I come here to get some peace and quiet.”

Fitz nods with approval. “Good,” he says, matter-of-fact. “You’re too smart not to go to university.”

It’s almost embarrassing, but she hasn’t had encouragement in so long that tears begin to burn her eyes. She pretends to sift through her books so he won’t see. “I suppose we shall see about that. Working as a nurse for the past few years has made me rather rusty, I’m afraid.”

Not that she regrets it, of course. Tending to the wounded brought to the countryside to convalesce is not something to be regretted. Oh, how many things she has learned and taken from the experience. The importance of the simple things: a good cup of tea, the smell of the rain, a kind word and a hand to hold. All the same, it’s put her plans for university on hold for considerably longer than Jemma previously thought they would be.

“Jemma Simmons being rusty? Nah, I don’t believe it,” Fitz teases her, a familiar glint in his eyes. Something in Jemma’s heart settles into place. Something comes home.

“You should.” She smiles ruefully, but then shifts the conversation away from her, uncomfortable with the spotlight. “So, tell me all of it.”

An uneasy look comes across Fitz’s face. The light goes out of his eyes. “Not much to tell.” Even his voice is different, sounding shrouded, hiding something underneath.

“Oh, come off it. I haven’t heard from you in almost six months. Surely things have happened.”

“Well, yeah, things have _happened_ , Jemma; there was a war on. Doesn’t mean you want to hear about it.”

This is when she knows he simply has to tell her, otherwise whatever it is will eat away at him for years and years to come. She shuffles closer, rests a hand on his knee.

“You’re my best friend, Fitz,” she tells him, quite quietly but ever so matter-of-factly. “I want to hear about everything.”

He looks grateful and with a deep breath and his hand griping hers, he begins to tell his story.

Once, when Jemma was a child and beginning her everlasting phase of curiosity, her mother had warned her that there were some questions you didn’t want to hear the answer to. _There are some things you can’t unhear, Jemma,_ her mother had told her sternly. _Some things you’ll hear and they’ll rattle about your head for years. One day you’ll learn that there are things you’re better off not knowing._

It had made no sense, because even with answers you didn’t want, you still had more pieces of the puzzle and could make more sense of the world with the whole truth. It had never made sense, until just now. Fitz’s shaky breath and choked voice surrounding the words that he speaks are almost too much, and Jemma’s horrified to find that, if she didn’t love him the way she does, she would have to ask him to stop.

For he tells her about the things he’s seen, the horrors he’s witnessed. He tells her of the emaciated refugees with paper skin and empty eyes. He tells her of the fellow soldiers, his brothers in arms, that were one moment beside him laughing and the next quite still and broken on the ground. He tells her of the explosion, of the burning oil and the flying shrapnel that seemed to come from everywhere, and of the painful months that follows where there was nothing he wanted more in the world than just to sleep forevermore.

And after there’s nothing she can say except, “You came back.” And how she wishes she was brave enough to add _to me._

Fitz nods, running a hand under his eyes. “Came back.” Then he digs around in his inside breast pocket and produces something that Jemma cannot yet see. “Brought this, too.” He unfurls his fingers to produce a ring.

It’s nothing special. A simple silver band with the tiniest of stones set a little off-centre into the metal. There’s no sunshine yet, for it’s not quite late enough, but it sparkles absolutely magnificently.

“A ring,” she mumbles, though more to herself than to him. At first it doesn’t quite click, because why would it? They’ve been friends for as long as she can remember, done everything they could together. They’ve been through it all – even a war for goodness sake. Why on Earth would she assume he would want anything more?

And then she thinks and softly goes _oh_ and realises that she’s answered her own question.

“I know it’s a bit quick,” Fitz says quite breathily, “and it’s nothing special. But the thing is, it’s been in my pocket for the last three years and I thought it was about time to give it to you.”

Jemma disagrees; she thinks it’s the most special thing that she could ever lay eyes on. With wide eyes, too afraid to touch it yet, she says, “You mean you’ve taken it everywhere?”

“Everywhere.” He coughs, runs his other hand through his hair. “I’ve wanted to give it to you for a while but I… I didn’t want you to be promised to a ghost.”

With teary eyes she looks up at him. There’s no word in her extensive vocabulary, nothing that could ever help put name to this feeling in her heart. “I um, I suppose that makes sense.”

He laughs a little, as if to say _of course._ “It’s lucky, really. I wanted to take care of the bloody thing ‘cause I was scared I’d lose it so I was extra careful.” His voice goes quiet for a second. “Got a lot to thank it for.” Then back to the way it was before. “I thought I lost it at the hospital there; they take all your personal stuff out of your uniform and it was in this torn bit of lining in my pocket but…” He stops, a little bit breathless, like he can’t believe it. “It was still here.”

Jemma, somehow, feels this relief, too. “Well, thank goodness for that. It would have been a shame, otherwise.”

Fitz’s head snaps up; she’s rather surprised it doesn’t pop. “Really?”

“Yes.” She feels a smile grow of its own accord. “It would have.”

It would have been a shame, but the greater one would have been if he had never returned at all. Not a shame, but devastating in a way that would not be recoverable. A ring is something appreciated and adored but not essential. Not like Fitz.

While he has carried this ring to keep him going, she has only carried the memory of him, and constantly wondered if this is all she would have for the rest of her life.

“So,” he ventures, licking his lips nervously. She wonders what kissing him will be like. “Does that mean that you’ll marry me?”

Right now she feels as though she is floating; suddenly there is no uncomfortable bench beneath her cushion and her feet are not sinking into soggy soles. There is nothing except _love love love_ all around.

However, she is still Jemma Simmons. Still logical and practical. Still knows what’s expected, after all.

“There’s nothing I would love more but, oh, Fitz, we’ve never even been to the dancing.”

They’ve been to the pictures and they’ve strolled in the park, and taken picnics at the beach; everything one would do with a significant other they intended to marry. They’ve just never been to the dancing at the town hall on a Friday night. She’s never spun with him, watching the rest of the room fade away, making it seem as though they’re the only two that could ever be.

It’s not important to her, not really. It’s what her grandmother would expect, and his mother, and all of those adults that have made it their business to have a say in what they do with their (quite grownup) lives. Though she tries not to, there’s still a small part of her that does indeed care of what they will think of an engagement quite sprung on them out of the blue, even if it is to their dear Fitz.

(Though, there’s also a part of her that thinks her grandmother will be quite relieved she is marrying anybody, for with Jemma insisting on going back to university, she had been worried that nobody would be able to deal with a girl much more qualified than they.)

“Oh, um, no,” Fitz begins slowly, looking down at his leg. “Don’t suppose we have been dancing, actually.”

She feels truly terrible, her heart sinking into her stomach like a lead weight. Putting her hands on either side of his face, resting her forehead on his, she tries to convey how sorry she is, the truth in her next words. “It doesn’t mater. I do not care. About any of it.”

“You deserve it, though.” Eyes closed, he breathes deeply; she rejoices in the warm air she feels over her face. Opens his eyes with fire int the blue. “We’ll go, we’ll dance.”

His determination stirs up such feelings of fondness she wonders how she’s never noticed it for all these years. For it’s always been there – these feelings are not new. They are as familiar to her as breathing, have been as reliable and sure like a heartbeat, rarely noticed but always giving life in the background.

“Alright.” She nods. “We shall go dancing.”

He grins. “You just uh, might need to carry me.”

“Oh, Fitz,” she laughs, closing her eyes to keep the tears gathering _inside._ “Always.”

He fumbles with the ring, and she cottons on that it’s supposed to go on her finger. It slides on without the least bit of resistance, just as she knew it would.

And finally, _finally,_ it’s time to kiss him and it’s nothing like she thought it would be but that’s alright. It’s wonderful and fantastic and _more._

“We’re getting married,” she tells him, giggling in a way that she only reserves for the most special of occasions.

Fitz, for his part, still looks a little shocked by it. “I suppose we are.”

There’s warmth on her face, and Jemma realises it doesn’t only come from within; the sun has come out early. She begins to gather up all of her things. Fitz takes a few minutes and rolls his leg from side to side but stands up and begins to help.

“Well, where to first?” He asks her, looking at her textbooks. “Soon to be Dr Jemma Simmons?”

“Dr _Fitz_ simmons,” she corrects, enjoying the immediate grin it produces. “I suppose we should get you to your mum – she’ll be ever so glad to see you.”

 _Glad_ is perhaps an understatement, for his mother is a woman who does not do things by halves. Jemma hopes she notices his leg before giving him a hug that will turn his bones to crumbs.

"I meant it, you know," she says suddenly, a desperate ache of need making itself known in her chest. Her callous comment has left her feeling empty. "That I would carry you. In all manners. Forever."

"Oh, Jemma." His voice is like honey - sweet and smooth and exactly right. It fills her and she is so glad in the sensation that it takes a second before she fully knows that it's love. "I know. Just like I hope you know that I'd carry you, too."

She presses a kiss to his cheek. "We'll carry each other." And she knows they will. They will carry each other the way they truly always have done. In their hands and in their minds and in their hearts until the time comes where there shall be no need for it because their bones shall be laid to rest in such a way that it will be impossible for them to become separated. 

His mother lives a little outside of Perth, and so they begin to walk, arm in arm, to the bus stop. The raindrops make everything glisten in the surprisingly warm Summer sunshine. To Jemma, the world feels as bright and new as it ever could. Oh, how she cannot wait for their next adventure.

“It’ll be nice,” she tells him, feeling like she could float away, “just a fifteen minute bus journey and then you’ll be home.”

He laughs and she turns to him, expecting to see some sort of mocking look on his face. Instead there is only love and there’s only tenderness in his voice when he tells her, “I already am.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year! Thank you ever so much for reading! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments. Please feel free not to. Either way, I hope you have a lovely day! I also hope 2019 is good to you all, and brings you everything you hope for <3


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